To not believe that 40% of parents want to bring back the cane?

[Voidka]

Really?

sorry not uyears, years,

Really my dd was told he was being precious when he told his class teacher

And this he needs to conform and the bullying will stop

But there are nearly 10m children in school in the UK. Of course there is bullying & of course there are schools that don't deal with it well.

But the vast majority are getting on with their education & never giving a teacher the sort of grief that a sharp word or a phone call home won't resolve.

Obviously that's eff all consolation if your child is being bullied or having their classes disrupted & it's totally unacceptable (good for you for getting the police in if that's what it took) - but it does make me cross that the DM makes out your average perfectly nice teenager to be some crazed berserker reducing his or her terrified teacher to a gibbering foetal ball behind the desk.

Generally they really aren't that horrid & we really aren't that ineffectual!

My son was accused of bullying by a child they were both winding each other up and these silly little arguments went on for months.

The school said they were both as bad as each other one day the police knocked our door and arrested my son because the boys father had said my son had pushed him in front of a car. It turned out the other boy had made it up to this day the father was convinced his son was being bullied which was proven not to be the case.

I agree raven.

Totally agree ravenAK. But sorry to hear that about your dd maypole, although that sounds like the staff in the school being appalling

ravenAk I agree all my childrens friends are lovely well mannered people, not one rude one.

I am a dumpy short softly spoken quite sensitive woman who cries at the soppy bits of X factor and can feel nervous watching Midsomer Murders. ( Is that how you spell it? I tried three times and then googled) The idea that I spend my day with a bunch of feral teenagers who have no respect for authority and no effective sanctions is just ridiculous.

If 40% want it back it is only because they want the other DCs caned-they assume their DC wouldn't be.It is the same as wanting grammar schools back-they assume their DC would get a place.
I don't want any DC caned.

I am old enough to have been caned - 4 times - at primary school.

It was for things like roller-skating on the mud at the edge of the field (after we were told not to go "on the grass") & for breaking a school rubber into pieces

So, emphatically, no.

Only boys were caned at my school so it wasn't a worry. Even then I thought it unfair.

I was strapped once - aged 4 - for stepping over a line.

I was once strapped because someone had blocked the toilets and they did not know which one of us it was - so they strapped all the girls in our class.

Hi Ponders
I once had to do lines at primary school.

My crime ?
" I must not do cartwheels in the playground " !

• Thankfully no caning involved even though it was in the 70's !

My DH may have been the last sixth-former to have been caned in England - or so one article claimed.

Hi, Juggling

no cartwheels in the playground? FGS!

when was your DH in 6th form? I know it still happened at my sec school (I left in 69) - they had begun to offer detentions instead, but generally considered that it was a soft option & that a boy who opted not to be caned was a wuss

ruler on the back of the hand? jesus

there were some bad people in schools in the old days. (there probably still are but at least they can't hit people)

School discipline (both corporal and otherwise) only works if the pupils are concerned about the consequences of their parents finding out.

If pupils know their parents won't care or will make excuses for them, then the schools behaviour management strategies will have no power.

A retiring (and rather scary!)deputy head who started teaching when the belt was still in use told me that he came top of a poll in the school magazine about which teacher was the 'hardest belter'. And yet he knew he had never actually belted anyone in that school....

i am a secondary school teacher in what we call a 'school in challenging circumstances'. I have been there 8 years - including as a beginner teacher. NOT ONCE, EVER have I thought I would want to punish any child physically.
the VAST majority of misbehaviour is very low level (talking out of turn, not bringing a pen, chewing gum etc). corporal punishment would probably be a sanction for many of these that could be considered reasonably 'fair' but at what cost? the only pupils it would be 'effective' for are basically well behaved pupils for whom other less humiliating sanctions work too. These are the kind of students who have enough self control/understanding to decide that either what they want to do is worth the sanction or it isn't. (sometimes they decide it is but you only have to read any autobiography of a public school boy to know that was the same even if the consequence was the cane - indeed many posters have pointed this out already).
for the vast majority of pupils who commit these offences it would be yet one more person who they could not trust not to hurt them and yet one more example of things happening to them that they have no/very little control over.
behaviour is pretty good in my school now (it wasn't a year ago) because we changed models (we now operate as small houses within a very large school) and we work on the basis of human relationships. There are VERY few pupils who are willing to behave in a way that they know will upset me. Not because they are frightened of me but because they know I like them and they respond to that as all humans do. I am not a scary teacher, but I am consistent, fair (i hope), not dreadful at teaching and most importantly I like the kids.
Those who are prepared to do so I really don't believe would change their behaviour if, instead of imposing sanctions like internal seclusion, detentions etc, I used (or probably sent them to someone bigger than me who would use) the cane. Even if they would do we really want to live in a world where people act because they are afriad of being hurt rather than because they don't want to upset others?
(as an aside most of the kids I teach are bigger than me which surely emphasises the insanity of it for secondary schools?).
My point is that everyone would rather live a happy life, being liked/trusted etc. Sometimes kids are mischevious and consequences are due - but to suggest it needs be corporal is mad.
More importantly there are a significant minority for whom living a happy life is incredibly difficult. Kids whose lives are full of conflict, maybe some degree of SN (not to suggest that SN kids cannot be happy but if undiagnosed/ignored it can make life very horrible for these kids), noone to really rely on. I teach some 11 year olds who have as much control over their emotions as my 2 year old (seriously sobbing when told they have to stop playing and go to lessons). I wouldn't consider hitting my 2 year old. WHy would I consider it for the kids I teach?
I think my main point (sorry I am ranting - I jsut can't believe this) is that respect breeds respect. I don't shout/talk disrespectfullly/arrive at lessons unprepared/mistrust my pupils and in return they don't either. If any of them thought for one second I would hit them all of that would be lost.
madness.

i was thumped in the back and our whole class terrorised by a bully of a primary school teacher. Normally it was for not getting maths right,

We were a class of forty of whom 25 passed the 11 +. The whole class were anxious and showed symptoms of anxiety. Nothing was done. Because my parents were in awe of authority they did nothing even though I would wake up at night with anxiety attacks and not want to go to school on the day we followed up the maths programme.

Also I was the bright child who won a scholarship to the direct grant grammar school yet still slapped and thumped. WTF - I have to say that it really affected my self esteem and tbh have never forgiven my parents for not sticking up for me. Note I was not badly behaved but maybe just didn't achieve the standards expected even though I was bright.

So would never support caning and think anything like that is open to abuse.

actually am quite grateful for a thread like this to open up about it all.

BTW when this was going on I was 10.

twinkly troll, strapped aged 4 - that is just barbaric, it makes me feel physically ill to picture it.

But it seems that the vast majority of people posting here are against it so the figure of 49 per cent does not appear to be representative of MN

Maryz sorry do agree with the school if he was in say a test or a reading class someone constantly clicking his pen on and off is not really on

The teachers cannot go on supposed illness they have to do on diagnosed things

If he's finding the spot drugs hard to tolerate but

It no excuse for disrupting others the drugs make it harder not impossible

Have you tried herbal remedies for the spots .

Not having a go it might make him feel better but is likely to disrupt others learning Can you not take the sprig out so it clicks silently

But that dose not warrant the cain but again no danger of it being brought in

exactly sincity. I just cannot believe that most teachers could countenance coming to work if they made pupils feel like that. i think I have met one (out of maybe 300 teachers) who would evenly vaguely agree with the idea kids should be scared at school.
you cannot learn when you are scared.

also meant to add (I'm sorry I know I am ranting but I at the end of my 70 hour week (and working tomorrow) so feeling very emotional about it all!). tdoay I dealt with

• a 16 year old boy who pullled down another's trousers at break time

-14 year old boy and girl who had a slanging match

• 4 kids not wearing the right uniform
• 2 kids who hadn't done their HW
• 3 girls who are bullying another
• 1 boy who broke an expensive piece of equipment becuase he hurled scissors across the room (not at anyone just for 'fun').

sanctions applied:

• will spend a week of break/lunch times inside (did today without me having to check - we agreed this yesterday -he thinks it is fair (following our 'discussion')) and so did/willcooperate with it and apologised to kid and his mum in person
• apologised to each other - agreed to either not speak or speak civilly (phone calls home)
• phone call home to explain problem, some things confiscated (earrings etc) one who had wrong trousers spent the day in seclusion
• letter home - kept in at break to finish it - again didn't need to supervise them they sat and did it and found me on duty when it was done
• so far I have taken a statement frmo one - will need further investigation then probably involvement of onsite PC as it involves facebook/online bullying.
• will be an external exclusion and his parents will be sent a 'token' invoice as real amount is in the thousands. this is a serious one that will stay on his record etc.

I really really hope that not one of these kids felt humiliated or powerless. I am sure that they all understood I liked them (maybe not some of their behaviour). My experience of them told me they felt empowered to do the right thing (apologise, stay in without being asked, do their HW etc) but also that the 'vicitims' had some sense of fairness. ( I asked each and their parents they did). This is how we teach young people to become fair and reasonable members of our community. you cannot do that if you hit them.

The kind of vicious animal that would hit a four year old with a strap should be behind bars.